


you were good to me

by peacchy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, One Shot, future timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23913559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacchy/pseuds/peacchy
Summary: “Play along, Tobio,” her voice breaks when she calls his name. “Play along for me. I want this last memory of us here in our home to be a happy one."
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Reader
Comments: 7
Kudos: 88





	you were good to me

**Author's Note:**

> i just really felt like making an angst-y piece about moving away and having to break up... i heard how painful it is having to willingly let go for the “better”
> 
> ...sorry kageyama stans

“Tobio, food’s ready. It’s your favorite.”

Kageyama emerges from their shared bedroom, two trolley suitcases in tow. He sets them beside their apartment’s couch.

“Will you be okay carrying these bags to the check-in counter?”

She doesn’t respond. The sound of water pouring into her cup, and then into his, answers for her.

“Come, it’s gonna get cold,” she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She looks up and sees his hand still clutched onto the handle of one of her bags.

His thumb rests on the push-release button. He turns his head towards the direction of the bathroom, door wide open, to see it nearly empty save for two or three of his own products. His toothbrush looks lonely in the holder that was designed for two. 

“I’ll miss you,” he says from across the room.

She pulls a chair out and sits herself down.

The air is covered with thick stillness. “I’m missing you already,” he says, attempting to wade through it.

She puts her arms on the table, elbows protruding out when she supports her weight to lean over the spread of food. She fans the smell of pork curry towards her nose, relishing its savory scent.

Kageyama hangs his head low before tightening his jaw. He walks towards the table and sits himself in his usual seat across her, anyway.

He anchors his sight on a slice of a pork cutlet. It mimics an island, half-submerged in the rich sauce.

“Why are you acting this way?”

She clasps her hands together, a whisper of an “itadakimasu” leaving her lips.

“[F/N].”

She opens her mouth for a spoonful.

“Answer me.”

The flavor explodes in her mouth. She chews, swallows.

“Not eating, Tobio? I made it special for you,” she pokes the egg topping. He loves having this on top of his pork curry.

Kageyama slams his fist onto the wooden table, almost knocking his own glass of water into his overflowing plate.

She jerks her head up at his sudden outburst. Seconds pass before the water inside their cups reaches equilibrium once again.

“You’re leaving today. Your flight is in a few hours. Why are you acting like this?”

A knot has made home in her throat. She swallows, trying to evict this unwelcome reaction out of her body to no avail.

She opens her mouth before closing it again. Her nails are digging into the wood of her chair, threatening to leave a crescent moon-shaped mark long after she’s gone.

“Play along, Tobio,” her voice breaks when she calls his name. “Play along for me. I want this last memory of us here in our home to be a happy one,” her eyes betray her when fat tears start pooling up along her waterline.

Kageyama exhales sharply, his face contorting in pain. “I don’t know how.”

He holds back from sobbing, biting his lip instead like one’s hand would squeeze a stress ball during a flu shot.

“Don’t ask me to fake this when I can barely keep myself together.”

She sits in solemn silence. Kageyama’s fixed glare on the table has his bangs obscuring his features.

He recognizes that he’s not strong enough for this when rare tears start cascading down his cheeks. This is the second time he has ever cried in their relationship. The first and only other time was in high school, at the back of the volleyball gym, after a devastating loss to Aoba Johsai. She held him close as he crouched over her small frame, one of her hands resting on his head as the other smoothed circles on his back.

The hand that he brings up to his face is heavy when he wipes the tears away. “Why do we have to break up?”

“Tobio, we already talked about this.”

“I know. I realize I’m stupid for agreeing to it, but aren’t we better than this? Don’t you know me enough to acknowledge that I’d never do anything to betray your trust, even with this long-distance thing?”

She inhales deeply as if to push that knot deeper down her throat, away from the possibility of ushering in her breakdown. “I do know you, so well that I know you would be better off without the added liability of me in the picture.”

She reaches out and rests her small hand on his. He unclenches his fist when the warmth of her palm meets his paper-white knuckles.

“You’re a strong guy, Tobio. Focused. Driven. Extremely talented. You’re making waves in the volleyball world. Sacrificing your precious rest to stay up and talk to me, risking your game performance, wondering when’s the next time I’ll come back to Japan… that’s not you. You have to be doing better things.”

“Who are you to decide?” he cuts sharply, teeth showing. “What makes you think you think I can’t do it?”

She wrinkles her eyebrows, attempting to blink tears away before they finally meet eyes. She smooths her thumb over his hand.

“It’s not just the long distance, Tobio,” was her shaky reply.

A couple of teardrops manage to escape, splattering on the wooden table. “It’s the mismatched timezones. The busy schedules. The limited communication,” she finally lets out a sob. “And the lack of guarantee that I’ll ever return to Japan.”

Kageyama’s vision is murky when he grunts out his own choked sob. It’s painful, it feels like fire has ignited in his lungs and his throat is burning up too fast for him to catch his breath.

“Why does it have to be this way, [F/N]? Why us?”

She wishes the universe would present her with an answer. She too had been wondering for months.

“Maybe we’re just not meant to be together, Tobio. Maybe our paths were only meant to cross once.”

The steam from the food had dissipated. Her cooking was losing its warmth.

“If we weren’t meant to be together, then why were the years I spent with you the happiest I’ve ever been?”

She looks away to shield her sniffling face.

“Tell me, [F/N]. Tell me why I have to throw everything away, tell me why you expect me to be able to move on from this. You’re moving away and you tell me it’s because we weren’t meant to end up together?!”

Kageyama’s booming voice bounces off the walls of their apartment. She flinches, shoulders tensing up when he looks at her from across the table.

He calms down, feeling ashamed for the sudden outburst. Kageyama shifts his hand to hold onto her wrist. Reaching over the food, his long arm pulls her to her feet, around the table, and into his arms.

Kageyama’s body scoots to face away from the table in order to bring her close to him. He positions his girlfriend— or was it ex-girlfriend now?— to stand between his thighs. Not even looking up to face her, his head falls slack into her stomach and dampens her shirt with his salty tears.

“I’m sorry, [F/N]. I’m sorry that I can’t come with you.”

 _I’m sorry._ It’s those exact words she dreaded to hear. _Sorry? For what?_ No mistake was made here. She’s angry. She’s angry that the universe played this cruel joke of letting them meet, spending their most blissful years together, reveling in the perfection of a match made in heaven, only to be ripped away for some bullshit geographical reason. They didn't even have any long-standing issues. They were the perfect couple; the type that found comfort in silence and support in wordless glances, yet they were being uprooted from each other’s lives.

_Why did things have to take a turn for the worse when they were finally settling down?_

_How do you find a home at the other side of the world when you've already housed yourself in a person's embrace?_

_It’s not fair._

The thought makes her chest clench. Maybe it wasn’t anger. Maybe it was the thought of never having this soul-lifting, heart-sinking experience of love ever again. She knew that it was something Kageyama Tobio could only give, and she would merely live the rest of her life looking for it. Try as she might, denial will only ever breed band-aid solutions. A heart is indeed a heavy burden to carry.

The raven-haired man clutches onto the back of her shirt, his shoulders shaking with each sob he breathes out. It’s always painful watching someone cry. It’s even more painful when you’re crying with them, unable to do anything but mourn for the relationship.

“Don’t be sorry, Tobio. I’m so glad I got to see you become the person you are now. I’m proud of you.”

She rakes her fingers through his hair, just like she did before back in high school, as she remembers the view from the bleachers during his volleyball games. She has never missed one, with his games abroad being the exception. She always made sure to tune in no matter what ungodly hour it would have aired in Japan.

Kageyama realizes that it’s painful at the top. Everyone talks about the altitude, the prestige, but no one ever talks about the narrow peak, the suffocating space. And now the only breath of fresh air, _his_ breath of fresh air, was leaving too.

He recalls the last time she ran up to him for a celebratory post-game kiss, the last time they spent a lazy day cuddling under blankets watching volleyball replays, the last time he watched her peacefully sleeping with the morning light shining through the blinds.

He wishes he kissed her back harder, held her closer, watched her sleep a little longer.

Starting tomorrow, he’ll return home with no one to greet him with a “welcome back”.

It almost makes him choke on a ragged breath.

“You’ve been so good to me, [F/N]. I don’t want anyone else.”

She pushes his hair away from his forehead to press a lingering kiss on his skin.

“Don’t be silly,” she dismisses, tears running down her cheeks. As if she hasn’t been thinking the same.

“I’m serious. No one has ever loved me the way you do. I’m always going to carry a huge part of you in my life.”

The words leave his mouth so heavy; the weight of the inevitable, imminent breakup is cementing on his tongue. He has no choice but to face this wall.

“Tobio, if we cross paths in the future, will you love me all over again?”

He locks those bloodshot, tearful eyes with her.

“I don’t have to love you again. It’s always going to be you. No one’s going to take your place because I won’t let them.”

Time waits for no one, and not even volleyball prodigy Kageyama Tobio was exempt from that. His significant other releases herself from him, wiping his tears away with her fingers.

“Let’s eat, Tobio. One last time.”

He wishes the meal lasted longer, too.


End file.
